POLITECNICO DI TORINO
Master degree course in Mechatronic Engineering
Master Degree Thesis
Design and development of the T0-R0 rover for the European
Rover Challenge 2018
Management of Team DIANA
Advisor
prof. Giancarlo Genta
CandidateDaniel Lippi
To Team DIANA
Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not.
Both are equally terrifying.
[Arthur C. Clarke]
During the future manned missions to Moon and/or Mars, astronauts will be as- sisted by mobile robotic systems capable of performing various tasks, which span from scientific research to maintenance tasks. International intervarsity compe- titions have been set up because of the need to investigate, test and validate, in analog mission operational scenarios, solutions that will be applied to the next gen- eration of space rovers. Team DIANA, a student team from Politecnico di Torino, developed T0-R0, an engineering model of an analog astronaut assistance rover, designed for competing in European Rover Challenge 2018. After an brief intro- ductory discussion of planetary space robotics the execution of the project from the preliminary design phase to the production of the latest version of the rover will be described, which presents innovative solutions such as modified rocker boo- gie suspension system with shock absorbers and a robotic arm with exchangeable tools. The strict requirements and constraints of the project posed numerous chal- lenges both technical (mechanical, electronic, IT) and organizational which will be illustrated and discussed in detail. Team DIANA managed to compete in the Eu- ropean Rover Challenge in September 2018 coming 15th out of the 65 competing teams, a good final result considering that it was the first time that an Italian team had reached the final stages of the competition, proving that the project was correctly carried out and setting a solid starting point for future improvements and developments.
Acknowledgements
Firstly I would like to thank Prof. Giancarlo Genta, the Team’s academic advi- sor, for the trust he has shown in the team, allowing us complete autonomy in the management and execution of the project and for his passionate and constant support.
I would like to thank the many students who have been, or still are, part of team DIANA who have worked with enthusiasm and dedication towards an objec- tive which has, at times, seemed extremely far away and difficult to accomplish.
In particular Cristiano Pizzamiglio, Vincenzo Comito, Francesco Bufo, Dario Ric- cobono, Giulio Binello, Vito Borrelli, Luigi Di Rado, Marco Mazzetti, Michele Randine, Stefano Bonicelli, Franceso Masciari and Filippo Santonocito it’s been great knowing and working with you all.
My thanks also go to the staff of the DIMEAS for their patience and support in carrying out the many official procedures necessary for the success of the project.
List of Tables viii
List of Figures ix
1 Introduction 1
2 Planetary space robotics 3
2.1 Planetary exploration rovers: state of the art . . . 3
2.1.1 Lunokhod rovers . . . 3
2.1.2 Luna roving vehicle . . . 4
2.1.3 NASA’s Mars rovers . . . 5
2.1.4 Chang’e 3 and 4. . . 9
2.1.5 2020 scheduled missions . . . 10
2.2 Future generation of space rovers . . . 11
2.3 Rover challenge series . . . 13
3 Team D.I.A.N.A. 16 3.1 Management of a student team . . . 17
3.1.1 Team composition . . . 18
3.1.2 Team and work organization . . . 20
3.1.3 Workspaces and communication . . . 25
3.1.4 Funding and budget management . . . 27
3.2 Team’s projects . . . 27
3.2.1 Project AMALIA . . . 27
3.2.2 Project T0-R0 . . . 30
3.3 Outreach . . . 30
3.3.1 Conferences and presentations . . . 31
3.3.2 Theses and publications . . . 32
4 T0-R0: engineering model of an astronaut assistance rover for the European Rover Challenge 2018 34 4.1 European Rover Challenge 2018 . . . 35
4.1.1 Competition tasks . . . 36
4.2 T0-R0 project overview . . . 37
4.2.1 Project requirements and constraints . . . 38
4.2.2 Project assumptions . . . 42
4.2.3 Technologies used . . . 43
4.3 Project timeline . . . 44
4.4 Risk analysis . . . 46
4.5 T0-R0 rover design . . . 47
4.5.1 Logical Control System . . . 50
4.5.2 Mobility system . . . 51
4.5.3 Chassis. . . 54
4.5.4 Robotic arm . . . 56
4.5.5 Power system . . . 63
4.5.6 Communication system . . . 65
4.5.7 Vision & Navigation systems . . . 68
4.5.8 Specific task system. . . 69
4.5.9 Operation control station . . . 72
4.5.10 Safety system . . . 73
4.6 Testing phase . . . 74
4.7 Problems encountered . . . 77
4.8 Project cost reporting. . . 81
4.9 Competition results . . . 85
5 Conclusions and future developments 91
Appendices 93
A Drawings 94
B Electronic schemas 104
C System requirements 106
D ERC 2018 rules 113
Bibliography 148
3.1 2018 recruiting numbers . . . 25
4.1 Nvidia Jetson TX2 main features . . . 50
4.2 DC-DC converters power budget. . . 66
4.3 Synthesis of Team DIANA’s economic situation . . . 82
4.4 List of Team DIANA expenses in comparison to the estimates . . . 83
4.5 Breakdown of the T0-R0 rover value . . . 85
4.6 ERC 2018 final results . . . 86
C.1 Identified system requirements . . . 106
List of Figures
1.1 Artist concept human-robot collaboration in a future Lunar settle-
ment.(Credit ESA) . . . 1
2.1 Lunokod 1 rover . . . 4
2.2 Luna roving vehicle driven by astronaut David Scott during the Apollo 15 mission. (NASA) . . . 4
2.3 Photo of the models of NASA’s Mars rovers. (NASA) . . . 5
2.4 Render of the Mars Exploration Rover. (NASA) . . . 7
2.5 Self portrait of Curiosity rover taken with the camera mounted on the robotic arm on Mars. (NASA) . . . 8
2.6 Photo of the Yutu rover taken by the Chang’e-3 lander (redit: BACC, CAS) . . . 10
2.7 Rendering of ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover (credit: ESA) . . . 10
2.8 Logos of the Rover Challenge Series Competitions . . . 14
3.1 Team DIANA original logo . . . 16
3.2 Photo taken after a general meeting in May 2018. . . 18
3.3 Distribution of team members between the various engineering courses in 2017/2018 a.y. . . 19
3.4 Distribution of team members between the various years in 2017/2018 a.y. IV and V indicate the master course years. . . 19
3.5 General timeline of the team’s working periods during an academic year. . . 20
3.6 Organizational chart of team DIANA.. . . 22
3.7 Logos of the Google Lunar X Prize and of Team ITALIA . . . 27
3.8 Rover AMALIA versions . . . 28
3.9 AMALIA rover version 3.1 . . . 29
3.10 Detail of the custom elastic wheels . . . 29
3.11 Render of the T0-R0 rover . . . 30
3.12 Photo taken during the “salone dell’orientamento 2018”. . . 32
4.1 System functional requirements . . . 41
4.2 Planned project timeline from January 2018 to October 2018 . . . . 45
4.3 Render of T0-R0 rover in the scientific configuration . . . 47
4.4 Rover systems breakdown structure . . . 49
4.6 Render of the mobility system and chassis . . . 52
4.7 Left: screen shot of a simulation performed on ADAMS. Right: detail of the pulley-belt transmission . . . 53
4.8 One of VESC drive . . . 54
4.9 Detail of chassis, external view . . . 55
4.10 Detail of electronic placement . . . 56
4.11 Workspace of the arm plotted in Matlab. . . 57
4.12 The new design of the robotic arm . . . 58
4.13 The wrist with three DOF and helical gears . . . 59
4.14 The gripper with screw mechanism . . . 60
4.15 The scoop opened . . . 61
4.16 The Arm Controller PCB . . . 62
4.17 The block scheme of the inverse kinematic control . . . 63
4.18 BMS Schema . . . 64
4.19 BMS Master . . . 65
4.20 BMS Unit . . . 66
4.21 BMS DC/DC Converters Board . . . 67
4.22 Overall network schema of the rover . . . 68
4.23 Sonar Board . . . 69
4.24 Gripper with voltage measurement tool . . . 70
4.25 Scoop and core drill joining . . . 72
4.26 Scientific Platform . . . 73
4.27 Caches box operation . . . 74
4.28 Caches box operation, acquisition of the box . . . 75
4.29 The base station during competition . . . 76
4.30 DC/DC Board schematic . . . 76
4.31 BMS Master schematic . . . 77
4.32 Simulation of the maintenance task . . . 77
4.33 Testing the science task . . . 78
4.34 Testing of the cache collection task and of the computer vision cache recognition . . . 78
4.35 Testing of the cache collection task . . . 79
4.36 Testing the mobility system at the OGR . . . 79
4.37 Testing the mobility system in the Polytechnic courtyard. As ex- pected, the bogie can get stuck when overcoming step-like obstacles 80 4.38 Picture taken on the competition field of the ERC2018 . . . 89
4.39 Picture taken during the cache collection task . . . 89
4.40 Picture taken during the scientific task . . . 90
4.41 Picture taken during the maintenance task . . . 90
A.1 General dimension of rover T0-R0 . . . 95
A.2 Assembly of the chassis . . . 96
A.3 Bogie plate . . . 97
A.4 Example of swinging arm, in particular of rear wheel motor connec- tion side. . . 98
A.5 Differential bar . . . 99
A.6 Robotic arm - shoulder joint U support . . . 100
A.7 Robotic arm - arm link . . . 101
A.8 Robotic arm - forearm link . . . 102
A.9 Robotic arm - base plate . . . 103
B.1 Complete electrical and electronic schema of rover T0-R0 . . . 105
Introduction
Figure 1.1: Artist concept human-robot collaboration in a future Lunar settle- ment.(Credit ESA)
In many respects, the ultimate “field” for robots is space. Creating robots for space is certainly one of the most ambitious engineering goals. Space applications present many challenges to robotic systems: from extremes of temperature, vacuum, shock, radiation, and gravity, to limitation on power, mass and communication;
from the intricate complexity of system engineering, to requirements of reliability, robustness and efficiency.[1]
Robotic systems have been used for the exploration of our solar system while others have assisted astronauts in their activities on board the Space Shuttle and ISS. In the future in order to reduce human workload, costs and fatigue driven error and risk, intelligent robots will have to become an integral part of mission design
1 – Introduction
(figure1.1). [2]
In particular the use of astronaut assistance rovers will be of fundamental im- portance in the scenario of manned missions to the Moon and/or Mars. Up to now rovers, mobile robotic systems, have been used for the scientific exploration of the solid surfaces of celestial bodies of our solar system, however research is still necessary for the development of rovers that will one day work side by side with future space dwellers. In fact astronaut assistance rovers will have to carry out numerous tasks which span from maintenance and equipment servicing to scouting and sample collection.
The Rover Challenge Series is a series of competitions devised to promote the development of such rovers. Student teams from all over the world compete to produce multi-functional, low-cost, low-weight, remotely operated robots.
This dissertation will provide an overview of the design and development of the first version T0-R0 rover, an engineering model of astronaut assistance rover, which competed in the European Rover Challenge 2018th Edition. The project was carried out by Team DIANA in the period 2016-2018, during which the author was team leader and followed the project from the design phase, through its development and up to the participation in the competition.
In Chapter 2 after a brief illustration of the space exploration rovers that have been sent to the Moon and Mars, an analysis of the characteristics of astronaut assistance rovers is carried out and the Rover Challenge Series is described.
Chapter 3presents Team DIANA and it’s projects, paying particular attention to the organizational aspects within a student team.
Chapter 4 describes every aspect of the T0-R0 project. It starts with an analysis of the competition rules and requirements which drove the design and successive development of the rover T0-R0 taking into consideration the available technologies, resources and time constraints which are also described. It goes on to discuss some of the problems that emerged and partially affected the outcome of the project but did not compromise the participation in the competition. After a break down of the funding and expenditure involved in the project the competition results are presented.
In Chapter 5 a final consideration of the outcome of the project is made and possible future developments are discussed.
Planetary space robotics
Since the dawn of the space era, the use of robotic system has been of fundamental importance for both assisting astronaut operations and for the exploration, from orbit or on the surface, of planets and other celestial bodies of our solar system and beyond.
Interplanetary rovers are a particular category of spaceprobes, designed for the exploration of the solid surfaces of planets and other celestial bodies, to do so these kinds of robots are equipped with some sort of locomotion system (generally wheels, but other kind of solutions have also been suggested such legs, skis, tracks, hopping systems [3]).
In the past decades rovers have been sent to the Moon and Mars in order to gather pictures and other scientific data for increasing our knowledge about our solar system and paving the way for future human missions. Because of the com- plexity of such missions only a small number have managed to land safely and successfully complete their missions.
2.1 Planetary exploration rovers: state of the art
Of all the successful space exploration missions effected so far only 11 have included the use of planetary rovers which operated on the Moon and Mars. In the following subsections these rovers will be briefly illustrated to give an idea of their main characteristics.
2.1.1 Lunokhod rovers
The Soviet Union’s Lunokhod 1 (figure2.1) was the first successful rover to explore an extra terrestial envirornment. It arrived on the Moon on Nov. 17, 1970, upon the Luna 17 lander. Driven by remote-control operators in the Soviet Union, it traveled more than 10 kilometers in 10 months. The rover was solar-powered by day
2 – Planetary space robotics
Figure 2.1: Lunokod 1 rover
and relied on thermal energy from a polonium-210 radioisotope heater to survive the nighttime cold, when temperatures reached minus 150 degrees Celsius. The rover was designed to last three lunar days. It exceeded its operational projection, lasting for eleven lunar days (approximately 10 months). The success of Lunokhod 1 was repeated with Lunokhod 2 in 1973, which eventually drove approximately 37 kilometers (22.9 miles) on the lunar surface in 4 months before facing break down, probably due to lunar dust that covered the radiators.[4] [5]
2.1.2 Luna roving vehicle
Figure 2.2: Luna roving vehicle driven by astronaut David Scott during the Apollo 15 mission. (NASA)
The Apollo 15, 16, and 17 lunar rover vehicles (LRV) driven by space-suited as- tronauts on the Moon in 1971–1972 were manned, four-wheeled vehicles but could be teleoperated from ground if necessary if the two-astronaut crew were incapac- itated (Figure 2.2). Each rover was used on three traverses, one per day over the three day course of each mission. The longest traverse was 20.1 km and the greatest distance reached from the Lunar Module (LM) was 7.6 km, both on the Apollo 17 mission. The LRV had a mass of 210 kg and was designed to hold a payload of an additional 490 kg on the lunar surface. The frame was 3.1 meters long with a wheelbase of 2.3 meters. The frame was made of aluminum alloy 2219 tubing welded assemblies and consisted of a 3 part chassis which was hinged in the center so it could be folded up and hung in the Lunar Module quad 1 bay. The wheels consisted of a spun aluminum hub and an 81.8 cm diameter, 23 cm wide tire made of zinc coated woven steel strands. Titanium chevrons covered 50 percent of the contact area to provide traction. Each wheel had its own electric drive, a DC se- ries wound 190 W motor capable of 10,000 rpm, attached to the wheel via an 80:1 harmonic drive, and a mechanical brake unit. Power was provided by two 36-volt silver-zinc potassium hydroxide nonrechargeable batteries with a capacity of 121 amp-hr. [6]
2.1.3 NASA’s Mars rovers
Starting from 1997 NASA’s Mars program followed a series of very successful mis- sions which involved the use of rovers employing increasingly sophisticated technol- ogy every time. Figure 2.3 shows the models of the three generations of NASA’s Mars rovers closely compared to each other.
Figure 2.3: Photo of the models of NASA’s Mars rovers. (NASA)
2 – Planetary space robotics
Mars Path Finder
Sojourner microrover was the very first rover to work on Mars. The rover landed in July 1997, at the Ares Vallis, on the Mars Path Finder (MPF) lander, designed for a mission lasting 7 sols1, with possible extension to 30 sols. It was, in the end, active for 83 sols, traversing in total 106 m, all within 10m rage from the Pathfinder lander due to rover-lander radio link communication limits. Sojourner had a mass of 11.2 kg and dimensions of 63cm (length) x 28cm (height) x 48 cm (width). It used a six-wheeled rocker-bogie suspension system, Each wheel was powered by a tractive motor plus four additional motors on the outer wheels for steering. Sojourner car- ried three cameras: a forward-pointing monochrome stereo pair and a rear color camera for instrument pointing. However, its main navigation stereo panoramic camera pair resided on the Pathfinder lander on a telescopic mast. Sojourner had 16 x 0.127mm thick steel cleats per wheel which protruded 1 cm on each wheel. The vehicle could turn on the spot with a 37 cm turning radius and a top steering speed of 7°/s; steering angle feedback was provided by potentiometers. Sojourner traveled at speeds of 15 cm/s and stopped for hazard detection every 6.5 cm (one wheel ra- dius). Sojourner drew 4W to drive the wheels, 1W for the microcontroller, and 1W for onboard navigation. Sojourner steered autonomously (dead reckoning) to avoid obstacles using its wheel odometry, potentiometers, gyroscopes, and accelerometers to generate steering requirements to reach commanded goal locations. Sojourner hazard detection was based on proximity sensors including a frontal stereo camera pair, five laser striping projectors, and frontal contact sensors.The rover had hybrid power supplies composed by non rechargeable battery (150 W/hr) in combination with solar panels (capable of producing max 16 W).[8][6]
Mars Exploration Rovers
In 2004 two twin rovers named Spirit and Opportunity landed on the two opposite sides of Mars, the rovers operated well beyond the nominal 90 sol missions: Spirit’s mission finished in 2011 while Opportunity carried on until the 10th June 2018, when contact was lost due to a massive sand storm that obscured the sun for several months and probably covered the solar panels of the rover, the mission was declared officially concluded on the 13th February 2019.
Their mission was to characterize the geology of their local landing sites like
“robotic geologists” in search of clues for aqueous processes contextual to Mars’
astrobiology potential. Both rovers had a mass of 174 kg with a total vehicle length of 1.6m and wheel baseline width 1.22m and length 1.41m.
The chassis, like the Sojouner rover, was a six-wheeled rocker-bogie springless
1A Mars solar day has a mean period of 24 hours 39 minutes 35.244 seconds, and is customarily referred to a "sol" in order to distinguish this from the roughly 3% shorter solar day on Earth.[7]
Figure 2.4: Render of the Mars Exploration Rover. (NASA)
suspension. The rovers structure was based on composite panels with titanium alloy fittings while the rocker suspension was constructed from titanium alloy mounting six aluminum alloy wheels. Each wheel had a diameter of 25 cm diameter with the six-wheel configuration defining a 1.4m length x 1.2m wide footprint. Each wheel was independently driven, the four corner wheels being steerable for on-the-spot turning (with turn radius of 1.9 m). Each wheel was cleated for increased traction.
The design average traverse speed was 100 m/day including stops constrained by both energy consumption limitations and the risks inherent in target designation beyond 100 m. A 1.4m tall pan–tilt PanCam mast assembly mounted both navi- gation and science stereo camera platforms and thermal emission sensors. Hazard camera pairs were mounted onto the front and back of the rover. The mast mounted both the scientific stereoscopic PanCam and the traverse-supporting stereoscopic NavCams.
The maximum speed of the rover on flat ground was 4 cm/s but hazard avoid- ance would reduce this to 1 cm/s. The center of mass of the rover resided close to the rocker-bogie pivot giving it 45° lateral stability though software fault protection flagged any tilt exceeding 30° with an alarm condition. Each rover carried a Lit- ton LN-200 inertial measurement unit incorporating three-axis tilt and rate data.
MOLA (Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter) data were used to localize the rover by tri- angulation from orbit initially. UHF Doppler tracking from orbit provides coarse navigation to within 100m accuracy supplemented by additional in situ techniques.
Onboard self-localization error using onboard sensors was 10% and cumulative but the adoption of visual odometry reduced this error to 1%. The rover moved 30 cm traverse segments at 5 cm/s at a time separated by stops of 20 s for navigation
2 – Planetary space robotics
functions with daily traverses usually limited to around 10m (though this constraint was relaxed later in the mission). Hazard detection was enabled through the haz- ard cameras (HazCam) the images from which were processed while static. As the terrain was imaged, they were collect incrementally into world model maps of 10 x 10 m. [6]
Mars Scientific Laboratory
Figure 2.5: Self portrait of Curiosity rover taken with the camera mounted on the robotic arm on Mars. (NASA)
Part of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, Curiosity is the latest, largest and most capable rover sent to Mars so far (figure2.5). Touching down on the Martian surface on the 5th of August 2012 in the Gale crater, NASA success- fully demonstrated the capability of landing with extraordinary precision within an ellipse 20 km long and 7 km wide, thanks to the innovative and complex entry
and landing phase which included the use of a sky crane for the final rover touch down.[9]
Curiosity weights nearly 900kg , of which 80kg are of scientific instrumentations, and it is about the size of a small SUV: 3m long (not including the arm), 2,7 m width and 2,2m high.
The rover is powered by a “Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Genera- tor" or MMRTG for short. The MMRTG converts heat from the natural radioactive decay of plutonium into electricity, providing 110W of electrical power necessary for powering the rover and it charges two lithium ion batteries rechargeable batteries to meet peak demands of rover activities when the demand temporarily exceeds the generator’s steady electrical output levels. The heat from the MMRTG is also used to keep the rover’s tools and systems at their correct operating temperatures.
Like for the previous NASA’s Mars rovers, Curiosity presents a 6 wheeled rocker- bogie mobility system, the four external steering wheels allow the vehicle to turn in place and to perform arch shaped, with constant radius, turns. The structure is made out of titanium tubing while the wheels, which have a diameter of about 50cm, are made made of aluminum, with cleats for traction and curved titanium springs for springy support. The maximum speed of the rover on hard flat terrain is 4 cm/s but it is expected to have an average speed of less than than half of that.
The rover has two robotic arms:
• the mast, which has 2 DoF, it carries seven out of the seventeen on-board cameras and supports the Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS).
• a 5 DoF, 2.1m long, robotic arm which carries on the hand 5 different tools and sensors.
The main mission objective is to identify if in the past Mars had the environment characteristics necessary for supporting microbial life. To do so the rover carries 10 different scientific instrumentations.[10]
2.1.4 Chang’e 3 and 4
Both the Chang’e 3 (2013) and Chang’e 4 (2019) missions, part of the China Lu- nar Exploration Program, successfully landed two similar rovers YuTu (shown in figure2.6) and YuTu-2. In particular Chang’e 4 hold the primate of being the first lander and rover to land on the far side of the moon.
The rover’s mass is approximately 120 kg, including 20 kg of payload. The rover has a rectangular cuboid body which supports solar panels. A turret supports cameras and antennas and a robotic arm is used to collect soil samples.
The mobility is a 6-wheeled rocker-bogie suspension system, with four external steering wheels. The wheels a powered by BLDC motors. The rover can climb up to 20° slopes and drive over 20cm obstacles.[11]
2 – Planetary space robotics
Figure 2.6: Photo of the Yutu rover taken by the Chang’e-3 lander (redit: BACC, CAS)
YuTu rover, was designed to operate 3 lunar days but after 6 weeks, covering 114.8m, it was subject to failure to the mobility system, the mission was ended ion august 2016. [12]
2.1.5 2020 scheduled missions
Figure 2.7: Rendering of ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover (credit: ESA) Both NASA and ESA are planning to launch rovers rovers on Mars during the end of July 2020 launch window.
NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is strongly based on the design of it’s successful prede- cessor Curiosity rover. The mass is slightly higher 1050 kg (vs 900kg of Curiosity),
carries 7 scientific instruments and 23 cameras. The rover will try to produce oxy- gen form the carbon dioxide present in the planet’s atmosphere and it will collect and cache samples for a future sample return mission. In addition the rover will be accompanied by the very first Mars helicopter.[13]
Part of the ExoMars programme led by the European Space Agency and the Roscosmos State Corporation, Rosalind Franklin is a rover designed and developed by ESA that will have the objective to search for biomarkers, which are a direct sign of present or past life on the planet. To do so, the rover carries a drill capable of extracting samples form various depths, down to a maximum of two meters. The power system will comprise solar panels capable of producing 1200 Wh working in combination with Saft’s 1142 Wh (nominal) battery system. The system will store the energy generated by the solar panels to ensure uninterrupted operation during the Martian night. The rover will provide highly autonomous functions for both navigation, traveling (in order to travel up to 100m per sol) and for scientific operations. The mobility systems consist of 6 wheels, which are in pairs suspended on independent pivoted bogies, each wheel can be independently steered and driven . The rover has also the possibility to move in a sort of walking mode. The total mass of the rover will be approximately of 300 kg.[14]
2.2 Future generation of space rovers
Up to now the main objective of the space probes has been the gathering of precious scientific data and, in parallel, validating and consolidating technologies used for space and planetary environments. But in the perspective of future manned mis- sions to the Moon, Mars and the asteroid belt for both scientific and commercial means, the development of new robotic systems is necessary. In fact it is expected the use of robots will be fundamental for the preparation of base sites for future manned arrival, mining, astronaut transportation and in general for assisting astro- naut operations on board space craft and during extra vehicular activities (EVA) in space or on the surface of space bodies.
In particular robots designed for the assistance of astronauts on the surface of planets may be used for different operational scenarios briefly illustrated in the following paragraphs.
Preliminary surface exploration In order to save time or limit risks associated to EVAs, rovers could be used for a preliminary exploration of the surface of the planet for identifying the sites of interest for successive astronaut exploration. This kind of operation requires that the robot be equipped with instrumentation for preliminary scientific measurements and sample return containers. The rovers could perform these missions autonomously or be teleoperated by astronauts from a base placed on the planet surface or from orbit.
2 – Planetary space robotics
For these reasons astronauts need dexterous robotic systems, which can be op- erated by humans, to support extravehicular operations on the infrastructure The expectation of human-robot cross-operation on such infrastructures necessarily in- fluences the design of future infrastructure elements in order to simplify operational aspects. Ideally it would be best to robustly automate tasks that require a high level of attention for long periods which is tiring for a human operator and increases the risk of error.
Assist astronauts during extravehicular operations During EVAs by astro- nauts, rovers could be used for the transportation of tools, scientific instruments, soil samples and life support systems. As in the previous scenarios the rovers could be teleoperated, autonomous or semi-autonomous or present some kind of vocal control by the astronauts.
The above mentioned tasks require multi-functional robotics systems similar in some respects to the current exploration rovers but different in others, in particular regarding their speed: the rovers used up to now on Mars and the Moon have very low maximum speeds (just a few meters per hour),due to power limits and safety reasons, while a rover for astronaut assistance must have a moving speed at least as fast as a walking man (3-5km/h). In addition these systems must be equipped with manipulators capable of working with different kinds of objects and materials for example loose soil, rocks, instruments and infrastructures intended for human use.
Autonomy during the traverse and the operations would lighten the astronauts’
work.
The possibility of maintenance work on the rovers by astronauts would allow the rovers to be reconfigured according to the task to be performed, and the possibility of repairing and upgrading the rovers during their life span impacts particuarly on the degree of reliability these systems present, reducing the rate of redundancy of current exploration rovers have in order to avoid mission failure caused by non repairable faults.
The costs and masses of these systems must also be limited given the enormous masses and costs of the other systems necessary for manned missions.
Exploration rovers are electrically powered by on board solar panels or RTGs (Radioisotope Thermal Generators) which directly power the rover and/or charge on board batteries, but mass and space constraints limit the maximum available power for these systems. For a manned mission a power plant will be necessary for sustaining all the systems of the settlement, and would also allow batteries used for the astronaut assistance rovers to be recharged, consequently simplifying the design and permitting higher power limits.
2.3 Rover challenge series
In space robotics as in space activities in general the term Technology Readiness Level indicates to the level of maturity of a specific technology with regard to the possibility of using it in a real space mission. Each technology project is evaluated against the parameters for each technology level and is then assigned a TRL rating based on the projects progress. There are nine technology readiness levels. TRL 1 is the lowest and TRL 9 is the highest. The following is the list of the various TRLs:
• TRL 1 Basic principles observed and reported
• TRL 2 Technology concept and/or application formulated
• TRL 3 Analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof of concept
• TRL 4 Component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment
• TRL 5 Component and/or breadboard validation in relevant environment
• TRL 6 System/sub-system model or prototype demonstration in an opera- tional environment
• TRL 7 System prototype demonstration in an operational environment.
• TRL 8 Actual system completed and "flight qualified" through test and demon- stration
• TRL 9 Actual system flight proven through successful mission operations.
[15]
For university science teams it is difficult to go beyond testing in a laboratory setup (TRL 4), going beyond this phase would require enormous resources which would only be spent if an actual mission were being planned. Another way to push the technology further is the so-called analog missions. These are missions that aim to simulate as much of the full functionality of the system in an ‘as close as it gets’ environment under terrestrial conditions. What analog missions bring to the table is the need to completely integrate all technologies (HW and SW) in the fully equipped system. From the ‘simple’ com link to the complex, autonomous path and manipulation trajectory planning all the way to mission control and operator interaction, everything has to be working in concert time of the ‘analog’ mission.
In fact, a fully integrated system is almost always more than the sum of its parts.
There are cross-component effects that simply cannot be foreseen in the design and controlled environment testing phase. This is even more true for systems interacting with a dynamic, real world environment, possibly under harsh conditions.[16]
2 – Planetary space robotics
Analog missions and competitions are therefore fundamental for the successful development of real future space missions .
Many competitions, simulations and analog missions are organized in order to encourage research towards innovative solutions for currently unresolved problems in the space robotics sector, or to test possible operational scenarios that could be encountered in future space missions; one of these is the Rover Challenge Series.
The Rover Challenge Series is the most prestigious robotics challenge league, for university student teams, powered by the Mars Society2 and its international affiliates. It consists of the following competitions (figure 2.8):
• University Rover Challenge - URC (first edition in 2007)
• European Rover Challenge - ERC (first edition in 2014)
• Canadian International Rover Challenge - CIRC (first edition in 2018)
• Indian Rover Challenge - IRC (first edition in 2018)
• UK University Rover Challenge - UKURC (first edition in 2016)
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Figure 2.8: Logos of the Rover Challenge Series Competitions
The aim of these challenges is to get student teams to design and build a pro- totype of an astronaut assistance rover and compete in various task that simulate
2The Mars Society is the world’s largest and most influential volunteer-driven space-advocacy non-profit organization dedicated to promoting human exploration on the planet Mars.
http://www.marssociety.org/
the jobs that will one day be performed by the robots that will accompany the as- tronauts in the future manned missions to Mars3. These competitions also give the participants a chance to expand their knowledge of Martian exploration, provide valuable experience in different fields of engineering, project and team manage- ment, project documentation and presentation while also promoting STEM (Sci- ence, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and, especially, space exploration and robotics among the wider public.
All the above mentioned competitions present similar requirements:
• they must consist of stand alone platforms, remotely teleoperated with no direct view over the rover, no wiring is allowed for data or power transmission.
• configuration of the rovers can changed between one task and another
• total mass for each configuration must be inferior to 50/60Kg.
• use of COTS ( off-the-shelf components) is allowed and encouraged.
• rovers must be built with a low budget; the total value of the rover must be inferior to approximately 20000e (depending on the competition).
Regarding the last point of the previous list; limits to the overall cost of the rover are set, on the one hand, to induce the necessity to find low cost solutions for space projects and, on the other hand, to ensure a level playing field between teams that may have different economic resources available. The use of COTS is therefore encouraged because of their lower cost in comparison with custom components.
3Similar operations could also be performed in a manned mission to the Moon, but since the competitions are organized by the Mars Society they are presented in a Mars mission scenario.
Chapter 3
Team D.I.A.N.A.
Figure 3.1: Team DIANA original logo
Team DIANA is one of the Politecnico di Torino’s oldest and most important student teams (logo in figure 3.1 and a photo in figure 3.2). The acronym DIANA stand for “Ducti Ingenio Accipimus Naturam Astrorum” which can be translated from Latin to “guided by intelligence we can learn about the nature of the stars”.
Team DIANA is a research group made up of students enrolled in degree courses (I,II and III level) at Politecnico di Torino and it was founded in 2008. The Team focuses on projects related to the field of robotics for space applications, and one of its purposes is to become a reference point in this field of studies within the University.
In October 2018 Professor S. Corpino took over as Accademic Coordinator of team DIANA succeeding Professor G. Genta who held the role from 2008 to 2018.
Team DIANA is officially registered as an affiliated team of the DIMEAS (De- partment of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) but, due to the interdisci- plinary nature of the projects, it is also sustained by the DET (Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering) and by DAUIN (Department of
Automation and Computer Science Engineering).
The Politecnico di Torino strongly promotes student teams, allowing the pos- sibility to request conspicuous funding to support the teams’ activities (section 3.1.4), in fact they are considered an important resource for both the students and the university itself for several reasons:
• Strengthening the university didactics: members of student teams get a unique opportunity to gain experience by:
– working on real projects
– putting into practice what is learned during courses
– expanding and improving their knowledge about arguments not always strictly related to their study field
– gaining experience in team work
– dealing with problems encountered on real projects – collaborating with external companies
– improving communication skill by writing technical reports and presenting projects to the public
All of the above add important value to the students’ CVs.
• Promote university image and activities: thanks to the participation in events such as competitions, meetings and presentations, the teams promote the University’s activities and their innovative projects to the wider public.
• Promote collaboration between university and companies: Teams are encouraged to look for collaborations and sponsorships with external compa- nies that may be interested in contributing to or collaborating with the student teams.
3.1 Management of a student team
The author had the honour of holding the position of team co-leader and project manager of Team DIANA, from October 2015 to October 2018. During this period the team faced radical changes due to the ending of the first project AMALIA (pre- sented in section3.2.1) and the start of the newer project named T0-R0 (presented in section 3.2.2), which is also the main focus of this thesis.
Organising and managing a sizeable group of people (in this case a broad-based group of young students), with an ambitious project to develop, is a complex and demanding task but it has certainly been an enriching and rewarding experience.
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
Figure 3.2: Photo taken after a general meeting in May 2018.
3.1.1 Team composition
To better understand how the work within the team is organized it is important to illustrate the composition of the team. The number of active members in the team each year ranges between 40 to 70 students, and over 350 students have contributed to the growth of the team since 2008. The team members come from both Bachelors and Master courses in many different areas of engineering: aerospace, mechanical, automotive, electronic, computer science, mechatronic, materials, communication and cinema, energy, telecommunications, biomedical, management and physics en- gineering
In addition to Bachelor and Master students the team is supported by a few PhD students (generally ex team members), professors and external experts that share their experience and give advice to the Team in case of need.
The Team can also claim a high cultural heterogeneity thanks to the presence of many foreign students.
The distribution of the team members between the various courses is shown in figure 3.3, it can be seen that the majority of the members come from aerospace and mechanical engineering courses with respect to the smaller number of students belonging to the electronics and computer science fields. While the high number of aerospace students can be justified by their natural attraction to the space sector in which the team operates, it would be extremely useful if more electronics and
Figure 3.3: Distribution of team members between the various engineering courses in 2017/2018 a.y.
computer science students could be recruited onto the team as the project offers plenty of scope to put their skills into practice. Hopefully the future team leaders will find strategies to attract more students from the electronics and computer science courses, perhaps by encouraging the professors in these departments to help to motivate and incentivate their students’ participation in the team projects.
Figure 3.4: Distribution of team members between the various years in 2017/2018 a.y. IV and V indicate the master course years.
On average the team is made up of approximately 60% undergraduate students and 40% graduate students (figure 3.4); though undergraduates obviously do not
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
have the same breadth of knowledge as the master’s students, they do tend to have more time available to dedicate to the team.
Since most students spend only a few years in the team (rarely more than 3 or 4 years), the team has to face the high rate of turnover of its members; for this reason it is important to involve the particularly talented students from the first years of their studies, in order to allow them to spend as much time as possible within the team and gain enough experience and training for them to lead the team in the future.
The large variation in the number of team membersover the course of the year (between 40-70) is caused by a high drop out rate; in fact it’s common that many students, no matter how willing and passionate about the project they are, cannot manage the work load required by the team in addition to their already demanding university commitments. To help reduce this problem, team members have the chance to request the substitution of a 6 CFU “free choice” exam with the recogni- tion of the work carried out within the team, but this possibility is restricted to the most productive members in order discourage students who are only interested in avoiding an exam from entering the team. In addition, it is possible for members to use their work as the basis for a thesis project.
3.1.2 Team and work organization
The team’s workflow tends to naturally follow the academic year, focusing the work during the course periods and pausing during the exam periods; the team activities begin after the September exam session, following the general structure presented below (and illustrated in figure 3.5):
Figure 3.5: General timeline of the team’s working periods during an academic year.
• Team reorganization (End September - beginning of October): to ensure the continuous growth and improvement of the Team, at the beginning of each year a critical analysis of the previous year is carried out in order to identify strengths and weaknesses of the Team and find possible solutions to the latter.
In this period it is important to identify which members are going to continue in the team and how many new members need to be recruited and which fields they should ideally come from. New team leaders and subgroup leaders are nominated where necessary. The objectives for the year are identified and a preliminary time line and work schedule is created.
• Firs period of work (Mid October - mid January): once the work has been organized and the recruitment period is over the members start to actively work on the project.
• Winter exam session pause (End of January - beginning o March): in order to allow students to concentrate during the exam period the team activity stops, or in any case it slows down; in the last years, with the strict competition deadlines, it was not possible to completely stop the team’s activities.
• Second period of work (March - mid June): once the exams are over the team activities start again regularly until the summer exam period.
• Summer exam period and holidays (Mid June - end of September): for years during this period the team activities used to stop, but during the sum- mer of 2018 it was necessary to carry on with the team activities in order to manage to compete in the ERC, this lead to significant problems that will be illustrated in section 4.7.
The work is carried out in groups and sub-groups divided according to study field, tasks and duties such as:
• Mechanics group
• Electronics group
• Computer science group
• Media group
• Management group
Each group meets up, generally, on a weekly basis. Meetings are held in the evenings since it is usually the only time when all the students from the various course are available; during these meetings stock is taken of the current situation , decisions are made and work is carried out.
Because of the difficulty of gathering 70 people, all with different personal com- mitments, the team general meetings are organized just a few times per year; usually these meetings are also an occasion for team building activities (often a team dinner after the meeting, but other activities have been organised) which are fundamental
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
to create a sense of unity and cohesion and to allow the members of different groups to get to know each other better.
The group leaders, nominated in a democratic way on the basis of their experi- ence and availability, generally spend a great deal of time in the Team’s laboratory (section3.1.3), or in any case meet up frequently; this allows them to remain con- stantly updated on the progress of the various work groups, to coordinate with each other and ensures the successful integration between the various subsystems of the project.
Organizational chart
Figure 3.6: Organizational chart of team DIANA.
An organization chart is drawn up in order to show the structure of the team and the relationship between its parts (figure3.6). A Project Team Organizational Chart is a detailed and document-based graphical representation of the team which outlines specific roles, duties and responsibilities of the team members and other stakeholders participating in the project, and formally represents exactly how they are expected to collaborate with each other throughout the course of the project.[17]
In the chart four different roles can be identified:
• the Academic coordinator is the founder of the team and has several re- sponsibilities and duties:
– Assumes responsibility for the management of funds.
– Provides scientific and technical support to the design phase.
– Provides guidance to students on academic goals and educational issues.
– Assists students on course selection, study habits and career selection.
– Assists in selecting the right student team leaders.
• Team leader/group leaders: a team/group leader provides leadership and guidance to the team and takes responsibility for the results of teamwork. The team/group leader role involves the development and encouragement of the team members through training, leading, motivation, recognition, rewarding and other activities that stimulate and drive team members to do the required tasks. Team leaders are also involved in managing the budget, bureaucracy (i.e. purchase offers, etc.), contacts with companies and finding sponsorship for activities and projects.
• Team member: a project team member is a student who is actually involved in doing assigned tasks. Team members directly access the project and actively evolve its processes.
• Contributor: a project team contributor is a PhD student or an ex-team member or professor e.g. a student who has completed the degree programs) who participates in teamwork but is not actually involved in performing tasks and carrying out project team responsibilities. Contributors help improve the project through giving valued suggestions, expert judgment and consultation.
They are not responsible for the project results. Often project team contrib- utors have an interest or concern in the project, so they facilitate successful completion.[17]
The organizational chart is a useful tool: for instance, team members use the chart to explore what roles and responsibilities they have been assigned to, who will share those roles, and who will manage and lead their efforts. A group of young students turns into a team when every person in the group is capable of meeting the following conditions [17]:
• Understanding the work to be done within the endeavor.
• Planning for completing the assigned activities.
• Performing tasks within the timeline and quality expectations.
• Reporting on issues, changes, risks, and quality concerns to the leader.
• Communicating status of tasks.
• Being a person who can work well in cooperation with others.
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
Recruitment
Up to 2015 no formal recruitment process was ever organized; students interested in entering the team were free to join at any point during the year; this was possible because of the non restrictive deadlines of the AMALIA project, also the team activities were not widely publicised which kept the arrival of new members at a reasonable rate. However, this kind of approach is not feasible in the case of a project with short deadlines: for example T0-R0 project presents yearly deadlines which correspond to the timing of the competition. In this case it is necessary to organize a precise recruitment campaign at the beginning of the year, in order to start working with a well-defined group of people as soon as possible. Thanks to the experience gained over the years, it has become possible to create a well structured recruiting phase which allows the best candidates to be enlisted in the shortest possible time. The recruitment phase can be broken down into the following steps:
• Identification of the number and types of new members needed : after defining the year’s objectives and work schedule, the team and group leaders define the number and profiles of the new members they intend to recruit.
• Publicising of the recruitment campaign: the recruitment campaign is advertised through different communication channels such as the Team’s social media pages, website, posters and thanks to the university mailing list system.
During the recruitment campaign the team activities are briefly presented, the date of the public presentation is communicated and students are required to confirm their intention to attend to give an idea of the numbers expected. It is fundamental to try to reach the highest number of students possible in order not to miss any potentially valuable new members.
• Team presentation: a presentation meeting is organized to illustrate the Team’s activities, share details about recruitment methodology and answer questions from the public. During the last presentation a live streaming was also organized.
• Preliminary selection phase: At the end of the presentation a link to an on-line questionnaire is shared. The questionnaire contains different kinds of questions regarding:
– General information: name, field of studies, year of registration.
– Technical skills, software knowledge, previous experience.
– Motivation letter, time available per week, expected permanency, avail- ability during summer.
– A series of problems and exercises of varying difficulty to solve .
Candidates are given approximately 3-4 days to complete the questionnaire.
This is used to make a preliminary selection of the members qualified for accessing the interview. Before the interview extra informative documents regarding team projects and competitions are given out.
• Interviews and final selection: selected students are called for an inter- view with the group leaders; during a 20 minute meeting, the questionnaire is discussed and the students’ motivation and availability is evaluated.
• Training phase: once the recruitment is over a series of meetings are orga- nized in order to instruct the new members in the team activities, working methods and software used.
The ideal candidate is a student with a strong background in his/her field of studies, with previous experience with projects, willing to learn and contribute to the growth of the Team. Flexibility, autonomy, independence, predisposition to team work and availability (indicatively the team requires at least 8 hours per week of work) are also important characteristics that must be kept in consideration. In my experience I have seen that these last qualities are particularly important for the success of the team and that high academic achievers do not always make the best team players.
The evaluation of students is not an easy task, especially considering that the time for this phase is be limited and the recruitment is done by other members of the team (students judging other students) with no real expertize or much experience in recruiting. Nevertheless, year after year, recruitment is becoming more and more efficient and successful. To give an idea, the latest recruiting numbers are presented in table3.1.
Table 3.1: 2018 recruiting numbers participants at the presentation >250 questionnaires received 136 students interviewed (in four days) 70
new members selected 30
3.1.3 Workspaces and communication
In order to carry out the work physical spaces are needed and functional commu- nication channels are of fundamental importance.
Workspaces
The availability of physical spaces is a critical issue within the Politecnico di Torino, the huge number of students, lessons and activities makes it hard for student teams
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
to find laboratories and rooms where they can store material, organize meetings and in general carry out their activities. Team DIANA is fortunate in having the use of the micro-electronics software lab, located at the third floor of the DET (figure ??).
The laboratory has several electronic instruments: power supplies, oscilloscopes, signal generators and soldering stations. In addition, within the DET there is also a small workshop where simple mechanical jobs can be performed and a series of 3D printers are available. Other rooms and classes around the university can be booked for meetings if necessary.
Communication and file sharing
Information is passed within and through the team thanks to various communica- tion channels:
• Team-work on-line chats: most of the information is shared thanks to free chat services specifically designed for team work, in particular the team uses Slack1; more informal than emails, it allows a fast, simple and effective means of communication and discussion. Channels can be created in order to reach precise receivers, reaction buttons allow fast and simple feedback and thanks to extra plug-ins it is easy to interface Slack with other applications and web services used by the team. The application can easily be used on both computers and smartphones.
• Emails:the most classic way for communicating since the Internet era, emails are generally used for general and complete information to all the members of the team.
• Reports: team member are required to write reports of the work done, these reports are important for tracking the team work and allow all members to be informed on the project’s status and progress.
• On-line notice board: Trello2 is an on-line collaboration tool used for the organization of projects, contains lists of task that must be done or their level of progress and who is responsible for them.
• Orally: traditional meetings are always an effective way of exchanging infor- mation and discussing any questions.
The team also relies on Internet cloud services for file sharing and storing. Google drive3 is used for sharing files and documents while GitHub4 is used for the codes.
1https://slack.com/
2https://trello.com/
3https://www.google.com/drive/
4https://github.com/
3.1.4 Funding and budget management
As previously mentioned, Politecnico di Torino supports student team activities thanks to funding. The funding can be requested from the “Commissione Contributi e progettualità studentesca” (Commission for contributions and student teams) by presenting a project plan and detaiedl budget estimate as explained in the Commission regulations [18].
Though the academic advisor resposible for the team’s funds and signs the or- ders, it is the team leader’s duty to manage the budget correctly and keep track of the team expenses. This task is carried out with the use of spreadsheets where all the incomes and outgoings are recorded, during this process it is fundamental to keep a careful record of the details of the various expenses in order to ease the process of final reporting at the end of the project.
3.2 Team’s projects
Since 2008 team DIANA has worked on two main projects, both consisting in the design and building of engineering models of space rovers.
3.2.1 Project AMALIA
(a) (b)
Figure 3.7: Logos of the Google Lunar X Prize and of Team ITALIA Team DIANA was founded in 2008, in order to represent the Politecnico di Torino in the national Team ITALIA5 (logo in figure3.7a), whose objective was to compete for the Google Lunar X Prize (logo in figure3.7b), the mission was named AMALIA (Ascensio Machinae Ad Lunam Italica Arte).
The Google Lunar X Prize was a competition launched in 2007, offering a total of US$ 30 million in prizes to the first privately funded teams to land a robot on the Moon that successfully travelled more than 500 meters and transmitted back high- definition images and video. The first team to do so would have claimed the US$ 20
5http://www.amalia-teamitalia.it
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
million grand prize; while the second team to accomplish the same tasks would have been awarded a US$ 5 million second prize. Teams could also earn additional money by completing further tasks beyond the baseline requirements required to win the grand or second prize, such as traveling ten times the baseline requirements (greater than 5,000 meters), capturing images of the remains of Apollo program hardware or other man-made objects on the Moon, verifying from the lunar surface the recent detection of water ice on the Moon, or surviving a lunar night. Additionally, a US$
1 million diversity award was to be given to teams that made significant strides in promoting ethnic diversity in STEM fields.
The competition ended in January 2018, with Google retiring as sponsor with no successful team managing to send their rover to the Moon. The X Prize foundation is currently searching for new sponsors in order to carry on the challenge, since there are a few teams which claim to be nearly ready to alunch their robots.
Figure 3.8: Rover AMALIA versions
Within this AMALIA mission Team DIANA was assigned the task of designing and building the engineering model of the lunar rover. From 2008 to 2015 the Team developed 3 versions of the rover (figure 3.8), with the last version (figure 3.9) presenting some innovative solutions such as: patented space graded elastic wheels (figure 3.10), an active suspension system developed in collaboration with the Centro Ricerche FIAT and SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping) algorithms.
Unfortunately Team ITALIA retired from the competition due to lack of fund- ing since it was not possible to secure a launch contract within the competition deadlines. Nevertheless, team DIANA carried on working on the rover, using it as a research platform up to 2015.
Figure 3.9: AMALIA rover version 3.1
Figure 3.10: Detail of the custom elastic wheels
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
3.2.2 Project T0-R0
After the termination of the AMALIA project the Team decided to move towards more economically affordable projects and decided to try to compete in the Rover Challenge Series: a perfect competition for a team that historically deals with the development of rovers. Because of the completely different project requirements with respect to AMALIA, in 2015 (the year in which the author was nominated team co-leader), the Team began designing, from scratch, the first version of the engineering model of an astronaut assistance rover. The project is named T0-R0 (Torino Rover), a homage to both the city and the best known sci-fi films of all time. The objective is to compete in the European Rover Challenge in order to gain experience and to pave the way to the other rover challenges around the world. A detailed discussion of this project is presented in chapter 4.
Figure 3.11: Render of the T0-R0 rover
3.3 Outreach
Team DIANA not only focuses on the competitions but is also active in the di- vulgation of the work and results. This is done by taking part in conferences and expositions and by writing theses and articles.
3.3.1 Conferences and presentations
The team actively participates in many events, presenting the team and the uni- versity’s activities and working to promote interest and enthusiasm for space ex- ploration among the general public. For instance:
• Presentation at “l’Italia,lo spazio e il futuro: studenti e ingegneri all’opera”
conference, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 5 May 2015
• Television interview Rai 3 ”Speciale salone del libro”, Torino (Italy), 10 May 2016.
• Exposition stand for “100° Anniversario Aero Club”, Torino (Italy), 2 and 3 June 2016.
• Exposition stand for ”Salone dell’auto”, Torino (Italy), 9 to 12 of June 2016.
• Exposition stand for ”Notte dei ricercatori 2016”, Torino (Italy), 30 September 2016.
• Exposition stand for ”Maker Faire Rome 2016” , Rome (Italy), 14-16 October 2016.
• Speech for ”T0-R0 an Astronaut assistance rover” for international student group, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 8 May 2017.
• Exposition stand for ”Salone dell’orientamento 2017”, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 3-4 April 2017.
• Exposition stand for ”Bambini e bambine una giornata al Politecnico”, Po- litecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 2-3-4-5 May 2017.
• Exposition stand for ”Bimbi al Poli con mamma e papá”, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 19 May 2017.
• Paper and presentation with video speech for ”3rd International conference on Artificial Intelligence & Robotics”, San Diego (USA), 28-29 June 2017.
• Presentation for ”G7 oltre - idee dal futuro” conference, Auditorium Giovanni Agnelli, Torino (Italy), 26 September 2017.
• Exposition stand for ”Notte dei ricercatori 2017”, Torino (Italy), 29 September 2017.
• Exposition stand for ”Zero Robotics”, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 11 January 2018.
3 – Team D.I.A.N.A.
• Exposition stand for ”Salone dell’orientamento 2018”, Politecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 16-17 April 2018. (Figure 3.12)
• Exposition stand for ”Bambini e bambine una giornata al Politecnico”, Po- litecnico di Torino , Torino (Italy), 7-8-9-10-11 May 2018.
• Speech for ”Mars to Earth” conference, Milan (Italy), 16-17 May 2018.
• Participation in the “European Rover Challenge 2018”, Starachowice (Poland), 14-15-16 September 2018.
Figure 3.12: Photo taken during the “salone dell’orientamento 2018”.
3.3.2 Theses and publications
As already mentioned, team members have the possibility of writing their theses on the work carried out in the team. Over 50 theses have been written since the team began here is a brief list of some of the most recent ones:
• “Design of a wrist for a rover for ERC”, J. Grasso, Bachelor’s thesis;
• “Structure analysis of a rod belonging to mechanical system for samples col- lection”, L. Cordeschi, Bachelor’s thesis;
• “Preliminary study of the T0-R0 rover arm control system in ADAMS envi- ronment”, M. Randine, Bachelor’s thesis;
• “Shock absorber for Space Rover characterization”, M. Mazzetti, Bachelor’s thesis;
• “Running gear of the T0-R0 rover for the ERC”, G. Binello, Bachelor’s thesis.
Publication:
• C.Pizzamiglio, A.Andreoli, V.Comito, D.Lippi, G.Binello, S.Leveratto, D.Catelani, G.Genta, “Simulazione dinamica multibody del rover T0-R0 per la European Rover Challenge”, A&C. ANALISI E CALCOLO, vol. 76, Settembre/Ottobre 2016, pp. 38-45. - ISSN 1128-3874.
Chapter 4
T0-R0: engineering model of an astronaut assistance
rover for the European Rover Challenge 2018
The T0-R0 rover presented at the European Rover Challege 2018 is the product of more than three years of work and over 150 students have contributed to the project. With the T0-R0 project, Team DIANA decided to enter the world of the Rover Challenge Series in order to make a contribution to the development of the future generation of space rovers, train future engineers and to compete against teams from all over the world. The idea of participating in the Rover Challenge Series was first discussed in 2013, but at the time only a small group of students from the mechanical department worked on it; at that time no funding was available for the project and the work was limited to the analysis of the URC rules, researching information, brainstorming ideas and developing the preliminary concepts of the rover.
The first attempt to compete was in the European Rover Challenge 2016 edition, but an underestimation of the time and financial resources necessary for carrying out such a project forced the team to retire from the competition. Nevertheless the experience was extremely useful: important lessons were learnt regarding the time requirements, a good preliminary design was produced (the team were among the highest scorers in the preliminary documents phase) and the first components of the rover where realized. The Challenge was not held in 2017 so the team finally managed to participate in 2018 obtaining satisfying results that will be presented in section4.9. This chapter will illustrate how the project was managed, the final design of the rover and what was actually developed for the ERC2018. Failures
